Month: October 2013

If the grade (A-F) criteria were limited to 1) pre-ACA Medicaid eligible percentage enrolled (more is better) and 2) acceptance of the ACA Medicaid expansion, guess which state is at the top of the heap and bottom.

To help you out, here’s the kff Medicaid expansion table by state.  

Two states would have ranked #1 and #3 if they hadn’t rejected Medicaid expansion.  So, they fall to #25 and #26.  

About #50 — it’s a small state.  And it gets a considerable amount of attention on leftie blogs.  Favorable attention.

Would it surprise you to know that many of the states that rejected Medicaid expansion we’re scoring higher on Medicaid eligible and many states that accepted the expansion?  IOW many states with the least to lose and the most to gain, rejected the expansion.  Dumb, dumb, dumb.

 
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In dead last (Grade F) is Montana. Maybe if he were still Governor, Brian Schweitzer would have gotten the legislature to go along with the Medicaid expansion. However, with 21.7% of pre-ACA eligible Medicaid beneficiaries not enrolled, his eight year role as Montana’s executive is nothing to be proud of. Forty-nine other states did better; although with 20.6% eligible and not enrolled, Nevada has nothing to brag about.

In general, the “reddest” and poorest states were performing better than “blue” states. Oklahoma with only 4.5% not enrolled was at #3.

The worst “blue” state at 15.4% not enrolled and ranking #48 was — get ready for this one — New Jersey. Accepting the Medicaid expansion will catapult NJ to at least in the middle of the pack.

At 3.2% Maine was #1. Alas, they are currently stuck with a governor that vetoed the expansion.

The winner pre-ACA Medicaid unenrollment of 3.5% and approval of Medicaid expansion is — drum roll please — West Virginia. Ta dah! Still comfortable with federal socialism even if the residents have stopped voting for it.

Check it out in this cool interactive map.

My memories of Halloween as a child are mostly unhappy. I remember being bitterly cold in my costumes without an overcoat, or having trouble breathing through my plastic Spider-Man mask. The candy was nice, but getting it was too much of a pain in the ass. My best memory is the year that I went as a giant. I sat on my brother Andrew’s shoulders and he walked me around. I was warm, I didn’t have to walk forever, and I didn’t have any trouble breathing. Plus, I got to hang out with my big brother.

When I was in college, my best memory is when my girlfriend accompanied me to a party dressed as a Branch Davidian. That was appropriately ghoulish.

What was your favorite Halloween costume?

The people who write Wikipedia articles may be largely anonymous, but they are actually engaged in “work.” They write things down and then publish them. This requires energy. So, when you take their work and use it without attribution, you are cheating them. You are not giving them credit for the work they have done and you are claiming their effort as your own. Admittedly, this kind of sin isn’t as egregious as when you take money out of someone’s pocket but it is still a dishonest and dishonorable thing to do. So, Rand Paul should stop lifting Wikipedia articles and reciting them without attribution in his speeches. He should admit that he made a mistake, more than once, and he should commit to writing his own plot summaries of movies from now on. His defense of himself is pathetic.

“This is really about information and attacks coming from haters,” Paul said in an interview with Fusion on Wednesday. “The person who is leading this attack has been spreading hate on me for about three years now, and I don’t intend for it to go away…

…“It is a disagreement on how you footnote things … but if we were to present any of these speeches for publication we would have footnotes in them. But a lot of times [in] a speech people don’t take the time to footnote things,” he said.

Paul said the plot line from the movie belongs to the screenwriter and he gave him credit in his speech.

“I didn’t claim that I created the movie ‘Gattaca.’ That is what is so absurd about this. The plotline to ‘Gattaca’ belongs to one person, the guy, the screenwriter, and I gave him credit for that.”

I don’t know about you, but if I like a movie enough to cite it in a speech, then I am fully capable of describing the plot line in my own words. Rand Paul isn’t a 9th-Grader who has to write a report about a book he hasn’t read. He’s a sitting United States senator. He should learn to act like one.

Congratulations to Cory Booker who was just sworn in as a U.S. Senator a few minutes after noon. The Democrats now have 55 members in their caucus. Sen. Booker’s first vote will be a cloture vote to end debate on the nomination of Rep. Mel Watt (D-NC) to be the head of the Federal Housing Finance Agency. The vote is occurring as I write this and a lot of Republicans are voting no.

I’ll be interested to see how Sen. Booker adapts to the non-stop infantile trolling of his colleagues on the other side of the aisle.

I do think he has some skill sets to build congenial relationships on the other side of the aisle, but I just don’t know how much that is worth these days.

Update [2013-10-31 12:29:54 by BooMan]: Vote is not over but it is already clear that there are 41 votes to block cloture. So, Booker’s first vote involved the Republicans blocking a black nominee with a filibuster.

The Republicans’ candidate for Lieutenant Governor in Virginia is a little crazier than average. He thinks that it is a big mistake to do yoga or meditate because if you empty out your mind it will allow Satan to walk right in and take control of your dead spirit.

Now, maybe if you go down to Arkansas and say something like that you will find an audience that nods in agreement. But in Northern Virginia or New Jersey or the Philly suburbs, people will start making calls for a paddy wagon. In our half of the country, talking about yoga and demonic possession isn’t a mere difference of opinion. It means you are a lunatic who needs immediate psychiatric help. You aren’t considered a conservative; you are considered insane. And there is no fucking way that people will vote for you.

This is why Rick Santorum was drubbed out of office by 18 points. Once it became known that he thought same-sex relationships would encourage bestiality, his support near Philly approached zero. It was no longer a choice between a Democrat and a Republican, but a choice between a normal functioning human being and a person who was in need of some kind of medication.

People on the right like to accuse us of being secular and not believing in God, but Blue America includes many religious people. That doesn’t mean that we will countenance obvious morons.

I wouldn’t use the word “insurmountable” in this sentence.
Maybe “irrepressible” would be more appropriate.

Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, predicted Tuesday that things could get ugly if Republicans block a vote this week on one of President Barack Obama’s key judicial nominees, Patricia Millett.

The pressure to change Senate rules and strip Republicans of their power to filibuster certain judicial nominees “would be almost insurmountable” if Republicans block Millet’s confirmation vote to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, Leahy said at an event advocating Millett, currently a Supreme Court appellate attorney.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has already threatened to invoke the so-called nuclear option if Republicans don’t let at least one of Obama’s D.C. Circuit nominees get a vote. Millett, who will come up for a vote as soon as Thursday, is the first of Obama’s three D.C. Circuit nominees to hit the Senate floor. Nina Pillard cleared the Senate Judiciary Committee and is ready for a floor vote, while Robert Wilkins is set for his committee vote on Thursday.

But, as Kathleen Sebelius likes to say, “whatever,” I just hope Patrick Leahy is correct.

Did the budget conference open with signs on conciliation or with a clash over taxes. Either way, the House is leaving town until November 13th, so there will be no more budget meetings between now and then. I’m glad that Paul Ryan has such a sense of urgency. The conference must come to an agreement by December 13th or it will be disbanded.

I wonder if Dean Baker is still optimistic.

Since I don’t live there and only visit four or five times a year, I really shouldn’t care much about who becomes the next mayor of New York City. But, I have to admit, the fear that Bill de Blasio invokes on the right is so immensely satisfying and amusing that I can’t wait for him to install his socialist regime. With any luck, they’ll be playing the Clash’s “Washington Bullets” as the balloons drop at his campaign victory party.

But they better hold the mayo.

I’m willing to be convinced otherwise, but I don’t think it’s a smart move to try to make John Boehner into the same kind of bogeyman that the Republicans turned Nancy Pelosi into in the 2010 midterms.

Rather than trying to make Boehner the face of evil, we should make him the face of impotent incompetence. In other words, it doesn’t matter what Boehner believes or wants because he isn’t running the show. We need to take his gavel away because he’s too incompetent to use it effectively. A vote for a Republican congressperson is a vote for default and government shutdown and gridlock and a bad economy. Boehner can’t keep his promises, so there is no need to even listen to him. The president figured that out. Even Boehner figured it out, which is why he will no longer even try to negotiate with the administration.

I don’t know. Maybe I only think this is the better route because I am paying attention. Maybe the facts don’t matter. But I still think a campaign that is rooted in the truth is an easier lift than one that tries to build a narrative from scratch.

What do you think?

New York City police commissioner, Raymond Kelly, is considered to be such a moral reprobate that he was literally booed off the stage at Brown University today, prompting a stern letter from university president Christina H. Paxson. Her point is the usual one. Universities are places for debate where all sides get a fair hearing, and booing Kelly off the stage not only denied him the right to speak, but also his detractors the right to confront him.

This is always an interesting conversation, including especially when Israel is involved. But there has to be a point of evil beyond which it is simply unacceptable to give someone a forum. And who gets to decide that? Do the students of Brown University get to decide that? Can a few loud protestors decide it, or should it be decided by a vote of the entire student body?

If someone thinks racial and sectarian profiling are gross violations of the law, the Constitution, and any decent moral code, why can’t they treat Raymond Kelly the same way they’d treat Orval Faubus?

In my opinion, it should always be in order for a member of the student body to ask for a vote if they think someone has been given a forum at their university who should more properly be facing a tribunal in the Hague. Maybe you think Ray Kelly doesn’t deserve to be treated so harshly, but what about Donald Rumsfeld or Dick Cheney or George W. Bush?

Some ideas deserve to be debated, and others should be confronted with baseball bats.